Chapter 4

Nathan visibly winced that a Mountie would show that much open hostility to the place he as suppose to serve.

"Second, he spends way to much time in the saloon for my tastes. Since I don't go in there unless absolutely needed, I wouldn't personally know. What I do know is what I have been told by other people in town."

"So tell what they are saying."

"According to both Hickum and Henry, they have seen Martin in there, in uniform, drinking. Lee told me that he saw Martin in there playing cards with Bouchard and some other men several times."

"Was he in uniform?"

"Lee didn't say and I didn't ask. Openly playing cards for money in the saloon is not a good look for a Mountie in a small town."

"Good point. Anything else?"

"Minnie banned him from the café."

"Was this before or after the Walden thing?"

"About the same time."

"Why did Minnie ban Martin from the café?"

Bill pulled out some papers from his bag. It wasn't that he needed them, but he wanted to make sure that he got it exactly right.

"According to the statement that Minnie wrote, she banned him for vulgar, hateful and inappropriate language and behavior. It wasn't the first time that she had warned him about his language."

"Do you care to elaborate a little on that?"

Bill just handed the paper over to Nathan to read. Nathan read through Minnie's statement and Bill saw him visible react to the words. He knew that Nathan would never tolerate the language that Martin had used. There was no excuse for the behavior that Martin had shown Minnie. Bill could see that Nathan wasn't happy as he had counted Joseph and Minnie as very close friends.

"And there are witnesses to this?"

"Several, including several of the school children. I even had to have a conversation with the boys that the behavior that they witnessed was not appropriate and that they would be in lots of trouble if I caught them repeating what they heard."

"According to this Minnie was more then justified in banning him from the café. I am glad that you spoke to the boys. Tell me more about Martin, you probably have had the most interaction with him."

"He refuses to work with me. He has tried to lock me out of the Mountie office several times. I have my own key and I refuse to give it back to him and he doesn't like that. I have seen his horse tied to the rail outside all day. He doesn't seem to want to interact with the towns people. He doesn't talk to them, he talks down to them. He has even upset Fiona and you know that she can normally take care of herself."

Over the next thirty minutes Bill told Nathan more about what Martin has done and not done since he came to Hope Valley. Nathan wasn't happy. They would have talked longer, but Allie came home from school and Bill didn't want to talk about things with her there. Allie immediately when up and hugged Bill and then Nathan.

"Hey, Allie-girl. How about you work on your homework. Uncle Bill and I have a little bit of work to do. Then we can have a nice evening together."

"Okay Uncle Nathan."

Allie went to her room. With Allie in her room, Bill and Nathan looked at each other. Bill went to the kitchen to make supper while Nathan worked on the case he had brought home. It wasn't long and Bill had a wonderful meal ready. Allie came out when called. The trio sat down to a nice supper and then had fun playing games. Nathan enjoyed listening to Allie and Bill banter back and forth while playing backgammon.

Once again, Nathan had a hard time getting to sleep. His thoughts were consumed with Elizabeth and the things that Martin had said to Minnie. When he finally fell asleep it was fitful. Nathan keep replaying what Elizabeth said to him that day and then watching her walk away and into the arms of Bouchard. Bill heard Nathan and went to him. Bill woke him up from the nightmare. Nathan refused to talk about what the nightmare was, but Bill figured he knew what it was. Both were glad that Allie hadn't woken up. Once Nathan calmed down, he was able to fall back into another fitful sleep.

The next morning, Bill saw Allie off to school. When she asked where Uncle Nathan was, Bill told her that they had a late night and Nathan was just sleeping late. Allie looked at him, but nodded her head. After Allie left, Bill went back to the files that Nathan had brought home. He went through everything on Walden again. While he was doing that, Bill saw something that he hadn't seen the day before. He noticed that Walden always worked in a smaller town on the railroad, but more then that, each of the towns, even those without the scam complaints only had no Mountie or no Mountie, but the towns were less then a day on the train from a much larger city. Bill noticed that those larger cities were all places that held a Thatcher Shipping warehouse.

Since Nathan still wasn't up, Bill made several calls to confirm what he knew. He made a call to William Thatcher and talked for several minutes. William confirmed what Bill knew and told him what he wanted. Bill was glad that William was willing to help. They purposely didn't talk about Elizabeth and Bill didn't say that he was in Union City with Nathan. After Bill hung up with William, he went back to the table and grabbed the map that Nathan had.

After Bill had marked the cities that William told him, he made a list of all the smaller towns that were within a day on the railroad. Bill was just finishing up when Nathan wandered out.

"Thank you for seeing Allie off to school."

"No problem. She was worried about you. I told her we were working late and I was letting you sleep in."

"Thank you. So what are you doing?"

"I think I might have broke your case or started a new one all together. Have some coffee, call the office to check in and than I will tell you what I found."

Nathan called the office and told them that he would be in later that afternoon, but if anyone needed him to give him a call at the apartment. Nathan then made some pancakes for himself and sat down with Bill. Once Nathan had sat down, Bill explained what he had learned and his call to William Thatcher.

"How did you know about Thatcher's warehouses?"

"I did some work for him from time to time when I was an Inspector."

"I hadn't fully ruled out one of the men in William's company."

"I can tell you without a doubt that William wouldn't allow anyone of his men to be involved in it. If he had found evidence that they were involved, he would have buried them. There is no way that he would have allowed anyone to disgrace the company his father built."

"I will take your word for it. I have never actually met the man. I have only talked to him a couple of time and a know what I have been told."

"You need to call the Mountie station in each of these towns. If there is not a full time Mountie, then the nearest station for that area. You need to ask them about anything similar to the scam that Walden was running."

"I already put out a notice on the teletype. For those stations that still don't have teletype, the nearest station will send out a notice. I put out a general idea of the scam and to look for the initials WW, JS and LB. I told them if they find anything, to send it all to me at headquarters in Union City."

"So we are going to have to just wait."

"I think that we can wait a few days. I have a feeling that we should hear things by Monday. Come on, spend the weekend with Allie and I having fun."

Bill nodded. Nathan and Bill spent some time working on the smuggling case and then went to get Allie from school after Nathan had checked in at headquarters. The trio spent a nice weekend together having fun. Nathan still had trouble sleeping over the weekend, but tried not to let it show. He pushed his feelings away and focused on Allie.

After seeing Allie off to school on Monday, Bill and Nathan gathered all of the case files and headed to headquarters. When they got there, Nathan checked the teletype and if there were any messages for him. He let the secretary know that they would be working out of his office, but didn't want to be bothered unless needed. Nathan thought about locking his door, but chose not to.

"So what are we going to do?"

"We are going to work on this case and wait to see what turns up today. We are also going to talk a little more about Martin and what we are going to do with him."

"Have you pulled his file? What does it say?"

"Yes, I pulled his file. I am not sharing it with you. I stretched the rules by even taking it out of the office."

"Fine, then you can tell me who signed off on Martin going to Hope Valley? Where was he before? And before you ask, yes, I asked him and he refused to tell me telling me that it wasn't any of my business as a nosy old judge."

Nathan grabbed the file and flipped it open.

"Collins signed off on the transfer to Hope Valley. Before Hope Valley, Martin was in Edmonton. He had been there for two years since graduating from training."

"Is there anything about him that jumps out at you. I know that there is something wrong with him."

Nathan flipped through the file some more.

"Nothing much here. Average grades through out school. Average work at the academy. No extra awards or certificates given. From what I can see is that he put in minimal effort and just met the standards. As I look through this I can see nothing that would make Martin stand out. With these actions, I don't see any advancement in the Mounties or receiving a high profile solo assignment. My question would be how did he get assigned to Hope Valley."

"Who recommended Martin for the assignment? In my experience superintendents will sign off on recommended transfers with few exceptions. Given the history of Hope Valley, it would normally get a little more attention as to who was assigned there."

"What do you mean?"

"Jack Thornton was initially assigned to then Coal Valley at the request of William Thatcher to keep Elizabeth safe. She didn't know this at the time and was upset when she found out. Then when Jack died, they saw how the town reacted. I told Collins and the others at the time that I didn't want anyone that didn't want to be there."

"So when I requested the transfer, it was approved."

"Yes. When you took the promotion, I again talked to Collins and O'Reilly, I reminded them again what the town had been through and even as loved as you were, you even had a hard time being accepted. I again asked for someone who wanted to be there."

"Here it is. Superintendent Thomas sent the recommendation to Collins saying Martin would be a good fit for Hope Valley and that he deserved a chance at a solo assignment."

"Martin is not a good fit for Hope Valley and from what you have said, there is nothing that screams that he should have a solo assignment."

"I agree. I don't think I know who Thomas is. Do you?"

"Samuel Thomas?"

Nathan flipped to the page of the recommendation.

"Yes. Samuel Thomas."

"If it the same man as I am thinking, he was a fairly decent cadet and made superintendent faster then most in his class."

"Okay. Do me a favor, go back to the apartment and call some of your contacts and see if you can learn anything about Martin and/or Thomas. Give me a couple of hours and then meet me at the café around the corner from my place. I need to update O'Reilly on the smuggling case."

Bill left and Nathan went to meet with his superior officer. He said a quick prayer that he wasn't dealing with dirty Mounties, but he gut was telling him that there was at least one. Nathan spent almost an hour talking to O'Reilly about what he had learned about the smuggling case. He purposely left out that Bill had helped him with critical information. Nathan also left out that he thought Walden was behind the smuggling as he had no proof.

"Suspects on the smuggling?"

"Maybe, nothing concrete. I am not going to name names and accuse someone of a felony until I can prove it."

"Very well. So what does Bill Avery want?"

"Help."

"With what."

Nathan shrugged.

"Before I talk about that, how about you tell me about Constable Martin."

"Why do you want to know about him?"

"Because even though I live and work here, I consider Hope Valley home. I don't want the people that I hold dear to me to be harassed and bullied, especially by someone who is suppose to uphold the law."

"What do you mean?"

Nathan handed over the statement from Minnie. O'Reilly read though the statement and looked at Nathan.

"I take it there is more."

Nathan nodded, he then went through everything that Bill had told him about Martin and what happened in Hope Valley. O'Reilly sat there stunned. He couldn't believe what he was hearing, he had known Martin and thought he was a good man.

"And you think that he is working with this Walden fellow?"

"I don't know. From what I have been told and have been able to learn it at least appears that he had turned a blind eye to some of his activities. How can we get people to trust us when we don't apply the law equally? From what I can see there is a clear violation of the oath that Martin took to uphold the law. Not only that, but his behavior in general is unbecoming of a Mountie. I want to know who he was taking orders from because from what Bill told me, it doesn't sound like it was you."

"I told Collins that putting Martin in this area was a problem."

"Why do you say that?"

"What I am going to tell you can't be repeated, not even to Bill. I will deal with Martin, but you are going to have to trust me."

Nathan nodded.